


Burning down the house

by Sumthinelse



Series: Shelter [4]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Covering up Murder, Mind Manipulation, Peter being the left hand
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:40:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23164876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sumthinelse/pseuds/Sumthinelse
Summary: Peter's old skills as the left hand come in...handy. Then he and Chris continue to dismantle the hunter organization.
Series: Shelter [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1654153
Comments: 3
Kudos: 50





	1. The left hand

**Author's Note:**

> Schools have been cancelled for the next two weeks due to Covid-19 outbreaks, so I have two children who will be driving me insane for at least one of them. I'll be home-schooling, and in my spare time (Ha) I'll be writing. Good luck and stay home, folks.

Burning down the house

Flashback:

Peter knocked on Lydia’s door and when Derek growled, he shot him with a tranquilizer dart.

“Not cool.”

“I told you he’d need to sleep through this.” Peter looked over her ensemble, nodded, and held out his elbow. “If you please?” It was raining out, and he didn’t want her to slip.

Peter led Lydia into the woods behind the house and then scooped her up and started running. He didn’t care for the smell of the spray Lydia had used to darken her hair, but it was necessary for the traffic cameras. When they got to the spot where the vehicle was parked, she shivered, slightly and didn’t look in the back of the vehicle.

“You said it yourself,” Peter said, looking at the banshee. “People will keep looking without bodies.”

“What about the bullets?”

“Took them out.”

“Bullet holes?”

“I’ve got a plan.” He looked at her closely. “You okay?”

“Let’s do this.”

Peter put on Gerard’s dark blue cap and a black parka. He got into the car with Lydia who sat in the passenger seat. They drove through the town doing about thirty miles over the speed limit, and thanks to three vandalism calls on the other side of town along with the Sheriff’s assurances that there were no police cars in their paths, they made it to the lake.

Lydia turned on Kate’s phone and went to work. She used it to make a pre-paid reservation online for a motel a few miles out of town. She pre-paid it with Kate’s credit card and called ahead to ask for extra towels. She plugged the phone into the charger and set the GPS for the motel, then she got out and let Peter do the rest.

“There are a lot of submerged trees, I picked this spot because of it.”

“They won’t have water in their lungs.”

“They died on impact.” He lifted the bodies out of the back, put them in the front seats and carefully bashed Gerard’s head against the window where Stiles’s bullet hole pierced the skull. He used his claws to make it artful, but realistic. He ripped a tree branch off a tree that would have been in the car’s path and drove it through the windshield into Gerard’s chest where the other bullet hole was. It was unlikely that the medical examiner in Beacon County would look very far, but if any other hunters came sniffing around, Peter could make sure the report said what it needed to. Kate’s head was smashed into the windshield and it would be enough to explain her broken neck.

It was gruesome work, but Peter got satisfaction from a plan coming together, although he had to hand it to Lydia, her idea of where to stage the accident was extremely helpful. He set the parking break and pushed the car so that there would be evidence of a driver trying to slow down on wet leaves and slippery pine needles. He turned the engine and lights on as he neared the cliff, on the off chance that a boater or someone near the lake might see it, and then shoved the SUV over the edge.

The height was high enough that there was a pause before the SUV hit the water. And Peter concealed himself near the edge to watch it sink. With a sigh of relief, he went to fetch Lydia and bring her home. She gave him a nod and went inside to wash the color out of her hair and presumably wipe up Derek’s drool from the carpet. He returned to his apartment and put his clothes in the wash.

~

It took longer than Peter expected before People missed Kate and Gerard, or at least before anyone contacted the authorities. He told himself it was their own fault for being sketchy and secretive. He was sketchy and secretive, and in his younger years, he knew his pack bond to his family was the only thing that would’ve prevented his body from lying undiscovered until the smell brought in the cleaners. He had allowed the bomb to detonate and cave in the tunnels, but he’d removed the bodies first, because disappearances led to questions.

The Alpha had enlisted Lydia’s help, and she’d agreed that they needed to make sure that Gerard and Kate made one final public appearance after Chris and Allison returned from their trip. They waited until it rained the night following Gerard and Kate’s deaths before putting their plan into motion. She’d kept her head down near the traffic cameras, and Gerard’s cap kept Peter’s face obscured. They staged everything and returned to their lives to wait. Almost two weeks later, a deputy found a spot where it looked like a vehicle had crashed through some trees and bushes near the edge of a cliff, and divers were dispatched. Gerard and Kate Argent’s lives were officially over thanks to the elder Argent’s reckless driving in the rain.


	2. No one expects the Spanish Inquisition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chris starts the ball rolling.

Chris did his part to seem stoic as he comforted Allison who kept saying how she couldn’t believe it happened that way. There were many hunters present for the funerals, and Allison seemed to sense, or had been directly told, about the danger of appearing weak. She was stoic and calm, like her father, and spoke in a clear voice at the service.

“I saw Olivia Reed trying to catch your eye after the receiving line,” Allison said. They were in the back of the limo on the way to the burial site. This part of the ceremony was private, and as the only remaining relatives, the Argents chose to politely decline the offers of support from the hunters. Back at the house, Lydia, Scott, Stiles and Sheriff Stilinski had organized and were hosting the memorial service, and their presence kept the hunters playing nice.

“Is that why you have an army at the house?”

“I didn’t want to talk shop today, and I don’t want to discuss the company, or the estate right now. I figured John, Stiles and Lydia can handle themselves, and nobody can be mean to Scott without looking like an ass.”

“What do you want to do after this?” He nodded at the two hearses driving ahead of them. He’d hired pallbearers for this part, although he’d had friends and hunting associates carrying the coffins out to the cars.

“I discreetly spread the word that if any of the matriarchs approached you the day you buried your father and sister, I’d have no mercy. We might be ruthless at times, but there’s something called class.” Chris was quiet after he heard that. He had figured that it would get back to her, but he’d deluded himself by believing she might not know how things were done.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t tell you.”

“I knew how it worked. Kate told me all about it when I was growing up, but I think it was because she wanted to cover her insecurity by pretending it was some kind of dominance display, or complex social practice. She suggested I do it a few times as well.”

“What?”

“She’s dead, Dad, it doesn’t matter anymore. Besides, I didn’t believe her.”

“Do you enjoy this kind of leadership?”

“I like being someone who can be called when things go bump in the night. I like knowing things about certain creatures that other people don’t. I like protecting people who can’t protect themselves.”

“You can do that in other ways.”

“Yeah, I’m thinking of retiring.”

“Really?”

“I can still hunt and keep my contacts, but you’ve been wanting to get out of the business for a while now. I can tell you don’t enjoy it like you used to.” She sounded oddly cold. “And I know you don’t want people butting into your personal life anymore.” The limo pulled to a stop at the gravesite and Chris remained silent while the driver came around to Allison’s door and opened it for her. Gerard and Kate were lowered into the ground while Chris and Allison watched. Funerals and burials were a wholly symbolic tradition, one that held meaning to some people, and gave a feeling of closure to others. “Are you okay, Dad?” Allison asked.

“Funerals are for the living, Sweetheart. They mean nothing to the dead.” He picked up the flowers that the funeral parlor gave him. He tossed a few onto each coffin and handed the rest to Allison. “The dead can neither appreciate, nor be hurt by what we do here.” He picked up a handful of dirt and tossed it on his father’s coffin, and then repeated it for Kate’s. “We had some good times, and I learned a lot from, and can appreciate your grandfather’s intelligence. He was also a bigot, a homophobe, a hypocrite, and deeply insecure. Kate was…Gerard put a lot of effort into appearing indifferent to her. It was a hobby, or a compulsion. I don’t know what she did that disappointed him so much, but that’s all he showed her. She was only eight when I left home, and already a damned sociopath.”

“I know.”

“I probably could’ve done more, but I was afraid of him.”

“I know.”

“Your mother got along well, but she and I both knew it was because she out-ranked him and they agreed on a lot of general philosophies. She just didn’t have the level of hate he did. Whatever you do, Allison, do it as yourself.”

“I promise.”

Afterwards, they got back in the limo for the drive back to the house. Chris closed the privacy window.

“Do you want to retire?”

“As CEO? Yes. I’m tired of being the face of hunting. I’d rather have a setup like Deaton’s, and rescue some of the Weres we capture.”

“You’ve never mentioned it before.” Chris was surprised.

“You don’t mention a lot of things,” she replied, cryptically as they pulled up to the house. Allison got out and he stayed behind to tip the driver. Most of the guests were still there, and they embraced them both before making their exits. He and Allison thanked them all for coming to show their support. Scott and Stiles handled the coats, John was good with names and made parting remarks to each guest, and Lydia wrangled the caterers and then the cleaners. She sent Allison upstairs for a nap, and Chris was surprised when she did the same for him.

“We’ve got this, go sleep and come back down to a clean, empty house. You’ve got my number, let me know what you need.

Allison left for Los Angeles the next day to meet with the attorney, and Chris agreed to pack up Gerard and Kate’s homes. He hired a cleaning company and emptied Kate’s apartment first. He took all of her tech and searched carefully for any hidden items in the home, but only found a few embarrassing personal ‘toys’ in the nightstand. He took her jewelry, weapons, and clothes for Allison and let a cleaning company pack up the rest and send it to auction. He had expected that some of the people either from Argent Arms or the hunter community to approach him, so he was surprised when he was left alone while he catalogued his father’s weapons, cleaned out his refrigerator.

Allison called the second day Chris spent at his father’s house. He made a video conference call to the attorney and listened as the will was discussed. Kate hadn’t had one, and as such, her possessions belonged to her closest relative. Paperwork would need to be filed with the court, but it seemed unlikely that anything would block it. Chris forwarded Kate’s mail to the attorney who would administer the estate. He was also the executor of Gerard’s will and Chris was surprised that his father had left him his weapons, and a small fishing cabin. He wasn’t touched, exactly, but he didn’t over-think it since neither Kate, nor Allison particularly liked fishing.

Gerard had left Kate a paltry sum, and Chris and Kate’s mother’s wedding jewelry. It was enough to keep her from contesting the will as a forgotten child, but certainly something that would’ve hurt her if she’d survived to hear the will read. Gerard was a devotee of their lifestyle and had left the bulk of the estate to the head of the family. Allison was now the proud owner of a house she hadn’t liked, and his stock in the company. Since Chris was technically Kate’s heir, he received hers. Gerard had owned forty-nine percent of the stock, Chris had twenty-six and Kate twenty-five. Chris now had fifty-one percent, and Allison had forty-nine.

“You could bump me off and have everything,” he said on the phone during the second hour of estate misery.

“Ugh,” Allison groaned. “Then I’d have to deal with your estate. No thanks.”

“Glad to know I’m more trouble dead than alive.”

“There’s a bunch of boxes at my apartment, according to my neighbor. I think I have to get them before the mail room closes.”

“Okay, you can email or text me later.”

Chris hung up and walked through his father’s house. He had a representative from the auction house coming the next day to look at what was worth selling, and he’d send the rest to a charity. They would usually come get furniture and larger items. He’d already done an inventory and was glad that his father had kept meticulous records. He’d still need to take some time to check each weapon’s function, but it was something he could assign to one of the employees. Danielle might like to do it.

Chris heard the front door open while he was in the basement, and picked up the nearest weapon, a Desert Eagle. He was halfway up the stairs when he realized who it was.

“I’ve always wanted to come back here,” Peter said, running his finger along the walnut bar.

“No, you haven’t.”

“I didn’t see much of it last time.” He wrinkled his nose. “I’ve killed more animals than he has, but I don’t feel the need to drape them on the walls and furniture.”

“What are you doing here, Peter?”

“I came to help you, of course.”

Peter did, in fact, help quite a lot. Chris had rarely seen the man take much responsibility for anything if he could pay someone else to do it, but he was surprisingly adept at cataloguing and labeling weapons. He also had a good eye for quality and put a few sticky notes on items in his father’s kitchen, office, and bedroom that had value. They opened a bottle of very old Scotch that Gerard had squirreled away in a cabinet and were sipping it when Peter heard a car. Chris listened and picked it up a moment later.

“Lightweight sedan; but it doesn’t seem familiar,” Chris said.

“Only one heartbeat,” Peter added. His senses were a little sharper than Chris’s. “What do you want to do?”

Araya Calaveras walked into the house and quietly closed the door behind her. She passed through the study and ran smack into Peter, who dropped the plate he was holding with a startled yell.

“Who are you?” Araya asked. “What are you doing in this house?”

“I was invited,” he snapped. “Who are you?” He turned towards the basement door. “Argent? There’s a strange and inquisitive woman standing here asking me questions.” He bent down and started picking up the shards. “And, she broke your dad’s plate.” He pushed past her to go to the kitchen and get a broom. 

“Araya?” Chris came to the top of the stairs with a clipboard in his hand. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“No one expects the Spanish Inquisition,” Peter muttered as he started sweeping up the smaller pieces of the broken plate.

“Who is this and what is he doing here?” she asked, in a patient voice.

“What are you doing here?” Chris asked, not answering the question. When Araya turned to Peter, he added, “you don’t owe her any answers.” He looked back at the matriarch. “Don’t tell me you were checking up on me. I’m busy, so just say it and go.”

“Why so tense?”

“Why are you here?” he asked again. “I’m not going to ask again, either get to the point, or leave.”

“Perhaps there is somewhere we could talk privately?” she asked, giving Peter a look.

“There’s an office upstairs.” He looked at Peter. “I’ll be right back.”

“Sure.”

Chris led the way to his father’s office and closed the door behind them. He folded his arms across his chest and leaned back against the large desk.

“I’ve always liked this house,” Araya began in her storyteller voice. “It suited the owner very well.”

“Allison hates it,” he replied. “Make her an offer before it goes on the market and she can sell it through the estate and save time.”

“I know you weren’t expecting me,” she said, and Chris took a leaf from Stiles’s book.

“That’s because I didn’t invite you, and you didn’t call ahead to ask if it was a good time. It’s not, by the way.”

“When people are expecting me, they behave differently.”

“You mean you’re welcomed?”

“When they’re surprised, they are more themselves.”

“Got that right.” His tone was far sharper than he’d intended, but he had a point to make, and Araya was as good a messenger as any of the others. “I’m tired, busy and I’ve been interrupted by someone I don’t want to talk to.”

“Why don’t you want to talk to me, Christopher?”

“Because I know you were conspiring with Julia Bacari, and I want no part of this.” He saw her surprise. “Julia Bacari was experimenting on Weres, _you_ obviously knew that,” he let the disgust show through his voice. “We have a code, and we show mercy to the animals. We kill them quickly, but we don’t exterminate them, and we only hunt the ones that hunt humans.”

“There are things you don’t know about them. You don’t know how subversive they are.”

“I know about Napa Valley. I know about the birthday picnic that ended with dead children. I know about the human she kidnapped ten years ago to test one of her theories.”

“A human?”

“Don’t try to take a high ground here and tell me that there are lines you don’t cross, Araya. I know better than that. And if you’ve got any more of those bullets, you’ll destroy them and walk away from this.”

“What happened in Beacon Hills?”

“After the break-in, I started looking for answers. I connected one of the employees to Bacari. I chased every trail of breadcrumbs till I found Kate.” He frowned. “I didn’t confront her. I had my suspicions and went looking for her secret lair.”

“What did you find?”

“Kate was pretty sick, herself. You don’t even want to know what she used to do to the Weres she used to keep chained up.” He smiled. “Or maybe that’s the kind of thing you like too.”

Araya spit on the floor and looked like she wanted to slap him.

“I’m nothing like _her._ If I’d known, she’d have been in the ground far sooner.” She was breathing heavily and then narrowed her eyes. “How did you kill her?”

“I didn’t. She and my father came after me. I nearly broke my leg getting away from them, but I hid until Allison found me. She doesn’t know about them. I assumed they skipped town, but I never saw them again.” He rubbed a hand over his head. “I didn’t believe it when the sheriff said they died in a car accident. I went to the morgue to look for myself.”

“And?”

“Everything I saw says they died on impact. The medical examiner thought my father might’ve had a heart attack while driving.” He walked across the hall to the bathroom and opened up the medicine cabinet. He pulled out six bottles and tossed them onto the desk. “This is an oral chemo drug, and this was for his arrhythmia. The chemo increases chance of pulmonary embolism, and with his type two diabetes, he already had a history of bad veins.” Araya looked at the bottles and nodded. “You need to leave my house. You need to forget you met me. You need to get your agents out of the country before I get back on Monday, or before Allison gets back whenever she decides to go back.”

“You can’t just walk away, Christopher.”

“ _You_ can’t walk away, Araya, but you can absolutely be exposed by the information Kate left on her laptop and the shipping information where she sent the bullets.” He looked thoughtful. “Oh, you don’t need to worry about Julia, that loose end has been tied up, and I’ve got her research as well.”

“I didn’t know about the humans,” Araya said. It was the same kind of emotion Gerard showed when he insisted on reassuring Stiles that he wouldn’t have given a Were over to people who sexually abused them.

“Right, you have standards.”

“We’ll talk again, Argent.”

“No, we won’t. You never ask me another question, you never pollute my home, and you never set a foot within a hundred miles of me or Allison. Your kind of corruption is dismantling your whole organization. Too many people know and its too late to stop it.”

“You mother knew,” she hissed. “She knew about the ones who walk and talk like humans.”

“Why would she care unless they hunted us?” He shrugged. “Why would you? And why would you think I’d be surprised?” He nodded to the door. “Get out of my country.”

Chris waited until he heard her drive away before he walked out of the room. Peter was at the bottom of the stairs.

“What do you want to do?”

“I’m not waiting for her to regroup.” He and Peter packed up Peter’s SUV, and the Lincoln Navigator his father had left Kate, with the valuable items and locked up the house. He put the place in his rearview mirror and headed back to Beacon Hills. Home. He answered his phone on Bluetooth when Peter called. “Don’t tell me you’re lost.”

“No, but I never did get a chance to relive some old memories.”

“You’re worse than Stiles ever was.”


	3. For a moment...everything was perfect.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chris tries to come clean.

Chris went back to the firing range on Monday. The employees gave their quiet condolences, and Danielle reduced her indifference to a level that was almost polite when she greeted him. He wasn’t surprised when Wesley, one of his instructors, had suddenly quit in his absence, citing a family emergency in Mexico. He went on with his work and sent a team of his trusted employees to the house to pick up the rest of the guns. He warned them that a big house of a known hunter might have interested thieves, and to use caution. He quietly warned one of the men, who was affiliated with the hunters, to look for traps and an ambush.

When he arrived home that night, Allison was waiting. She looked upset when she mentioned the sudden resignation of eight lower-level employees and one board member.

“Do they think the company is in trouble?”

“That was Mexico,” he said. “Argent Arms has cut ties with the Calaveras family.” He waited while she pressed her lips together in a thin line. “Araya went to Gerard’s house uninvited and unannounced. She walked in without knocking.” He didn’t need to tell Allison that Araya’s actions spoke in a separate language. Showing blatant disrespect during a grief period, even if it was only holding the tradition, meant she believed the Argent leadership was weak.

“You didn’t run it by me,” she said.

“No, I didn’t.” He waited while she absorbed the information. “The Calaverases were involved in an attack in Napa Valley. They were associated with a woman who was behind the break-ins at the shelter and the murder of an FBI agent. I won’t have Argent Arms associated with someone who commits a terrorist act here.”

“Was Araya behind the attacks at the shelter?”

“I don’t know. When I spoke to her, I told her that I was finished with the hunter organization and to get her operatives out of the country. I also told her she was staying a hundred miles away from me and my family.”

“Warning her away from another matriarch makes me look weak.”

“I wasn’t a hunter warning her away from a matriarch. I was a man telling her to stay away from me and my family.”

“What really happened in Beacon Hills?”

“I can tell you, but you can’t ever go back.”

“I can handle it.”

“Kate and your grandfather tried to kill me. I found out they were involved-at least Kate was involved- in the manufacturing and production of a toxic substance that made domesticated Weres go feral.”

“She wanted to be able to kill them again?”

“Or at least release some of the protections, I suspect. I didn’t have the time to ask her.”

“That’s insane.”

“It led to a number of deaths, including a group of people in Napa Valley. Children. Babies.” He waited. “The manufacturer dealt with Kate, who double-crossed her. Then she went to Araya, who carried out the Napa Valley attack. They shot domesticated Weres who were present at an eight-year-old’s birthday party. The Weres killed almost everyone present.”

“Did you kill Kate and Gerard?”

“No.”

“Did they really die in the accident?”

“I suspect so. Honey, I didn’t see them again after you found me in the woods.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked. “You let me go back to work not knowing how dangerous they were?”

“After the manufacturer was killed the night of the second shelter attack, Kate panicked. I caught her and told her that others knew where I was and that I had evidence of her association with the manufacturer. I thought they’d left the country, but Gerard probably had a heart attack on their way out of town and that caused the crash.”

Allison took the news about as well as could be expected. She was angry with Araya, and she agreed that they needed to get out of the hunter life officially. She did stand firm that she needed to stay in it long enough to locate the rest of the bullets.

“Okay, let’s get to work.” Allison had grown up a lot since her mother’s death, and she hit problems head-on.

~

It took careful coordination and no small amount of blackmail in order to get all of the bullets back, but a month after Chris’s meeting with Araya, all the known bullets had been destroyed, along with Bacari’s research. Allison remained involved with the hunters, but made it clear she was not building an army, just being available in case something went bump in the night. Chris was a retired ally and had announced his decision to take Argent Arms public and retire.

“We should talk, Sweetheart.” Chris and Allison each sat down with a drink in hand at her apartment in Los Angeles.

“About what?”

“There are some things I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t want to discuss it before having my exit strategy in place.”

“I know you’re gay.” The comment surprised him for its bluntness.

“I’m not gay, I like men and women. I loved your mother, and my feelings for her won’t change if I start seeing someone else.”

“You’re dating Stiles, aren’t you?”

“No, I’d love to date Stiles, but I keep too many secrets, and he sent me packing when we tried it out.”

“I hate it,” she said. “I hate that you don’t think my friends are off-limits.”

“Most of them are. I think of Lydia like a daughter, and Scott like the son-in-law I wish you’d stop jerking around.”

“Why Stiles?”

“I have no idea.”

“You’re lying.”

“I don’t want to talk to you about sexual attraction. I’ll just say the kid grew on me in the last few years. But, like I said, we’re not dating. We shared a fairly intense experience with the first break-in, and we were close for a while, but he didn’t like me keeping secrets, even if they were to protect him.”

“Are you seeing someone?”

“Not officially, no. And I’m not sure if he’s sticking around.”

“You’re not Stiles’s sugar daddy?”

“No.”

“Who is it?”

“Ask him,” Chris raised an eyebrow. “I’m not telling you his personal business. I’d hate it if he did it to me.”

“That wasn’t what you were going to say, is it?”

“No.”

“What?”

“I was bitten by a Were.” He paused and waited for her reaction. She kept her eyes on him and he saw her looking him over. “Not recently.”

“You recovered?”

“I turned.” He waited while she processed this. At first she looked at him like she thought he was joking, and then she looked uncertain.

“I would’ve known. I would’ve noticed a change.”

“There wasn’t one.” She looked even more confused. “It happened before you were born. I’ve been a Werewolf since I was a teenager.”

“Werewolf?”

“That’s what we are. I know scientists like to talk about Weres like they’re a kind of evolved ape, but that doesn’t cover it.”

“A hunter is supposed to-”

“Would you be happier if I’d offed myself as a kid?”

“No! What happened?”

Chris told her how he’d been saved by a pack Alpha when he had been badly injured. He told her how he lived his life as a human. He didn’t shift or use his abilities except in extreme situations. He had a Pack Alpha but that his original pack was dead.

“They were lynched like the people in Napa Valley. The children and humans weren’t spared. It was just about eliminating a whole pack at once. People who had jobs, lives, and paid taxes. They hadn’t hurt anyone.”

Allison drank her glass of wine very quickly and then confiscated his bourbon and tossed it back with the justification that it was wasted on a Were.”

“I still enjoy it,” he complained as he patted her on the back while she coughed. “Are you okay? You gonna make it?” Allison glared at him through watery eyes and nodded. “Are you okay with what I am?”

“It’s not going to be easy to accept. Just tell me one thing?”

“Sure.”

“Just how close did Stiles get to becoming my new step-mom?” She narrowed her eyes at him and he laughed. “I’m serious. Who else in my life have you slept with?”

“Just your mom.”

“Okay. Do you usually like younger guys?”

“Not as a rule, but I do have a certain appeal with the younger crowd. I’m more of a novelty to them, but I’m not looking for someone to take care of.”

“So, Stiles?”

“Not up for discussion. And don’t ambush him-in fact…” He pulled out his phone and pulled up his text messages from the Omega. He flipped to voice text mode. “Allison knows we dated. She’s here with me now.” He raised an eyebrow at his daughter.

“Spoilsport.” She looked at his phone when it pinged, and Chris read it.

“He says: ‘OMG is she going to kill me?’. And now following it up with: ‘Why did you tell her? It could’ve been our dirty little secret.’ And now: ‘OMG, you’re reading these to her now! What kind of look does she have on her face? Is she looking homicidal? Can you see any dimples?’.” He looked up when he heard Allison laughing. “That’s why,” he said to her with a hint of sadness in his eyes. “That’s why I pursued Stiles.” She looked at him seriously. “He’s funny, he’s kind, and incredibly smart.” He wiped a hand over his face. “He kicked my ass once, too. After he found out what I was.”

“He knows?”

“Yes.” Chris looked a little pained. “We’ve all gotten so good at keeping secrets, there was a group of us who knew each other but didn’t know that others knew…you know?”

“You can’t tell who’s like you?”

“Yes, I can. But it was a group of humans who knew bits and pieces of what was happening but didn’t talk to each other. We actually had so much information once we put our heads together, we got farther than we have in years at finding the source of the toxin.”

“You can’t tell me?”

“It’s not my secret. I shouldn’t have even told you about Stiles.” He sighed. “It’s complicated, but I’m your dad, and I’m the same person I’ve always been.”

“Are there others like you in Beacon Hills?”

“There aren’t that many who live like us in North America,” he said. “And I need to be a hundred percent clear, that you can’t go looking for them. If you suspect you think someone is a wolf, you make no indication that you suspect it, you ask them no questions, you don’t follow them, and you stay away. They are extremely protective of their secrets.”

“I’m a hunter.”

“Sweetheart, you’ve never met the left hand of a wolf pack.”

“Is that what you are?”

“No, my Alpha eliminates threats to her pack on her own. She’s one of the oldest living Werewolves, and she does not fuck around. She does not want to meet you, she does not want to introduce you around, and if you have a problem with any of this, the best outcome you can expect is that she’ll take your memories.”

“What’s the worst?”

“She kills us both.” Allison started to look determined when he said it. “You basically need to forget I ever told you, and act like you don’t know. Don’t bring it up with Stiles, because he won’t talk to you about it.”

“Why did your Alpha say it was okay?”

“I told her you already knew; I was just going to tell you about me.”

“Okay, Dad. I won’t say anything.”

“I love you, Sweetheart.” He got up and walked to the kitchen. He came back a moment later with refilled glasses of bourbon and wine.

“Another one?” She asked but was interrupted by a knock at the door.

“Come in, Peter.”

“Hi.” Peter walked in and held out his hand. “I’m Peter Hale.” She stood up and shook his hand, cautiously. “I’m the Alpha and former left hand of the Hale Pack.” Allison, to her credit, said nothing, but she looked like a deer in the headlight. “Your dad used to fuck me as a teenager.”

“Dad!” Allison spun around and Peter’s nails went into the back of her neck.

“Seriously?”

“I just needed her to turn around.” He caught Allison’s limp body and put her gently on the couch. “Where do you want me to start?”

“Right after she tells me she knows I’m gay.”

“Here.” He took a swallow of the wine. “I was listening, she’ll feel tipsier than a few sips in a minute.”

“Thanks.” Peter slid his nails out and dabbed at the blood with a tissue.

“You’ll have about ten seconds. I planted the suggestion that she backed into a branch for the neck punctures.” He propped her up and put the glass in her hand. “We can try again sometime.”

“Maybe. But I heard the lie. She was planning to tell someone.”

“Get her phone. Night.”

~

“I like women too. In fact, I loved your mother.” Chris looked at Allison’s drowsy expression. “I was faithful to her.”

“You’re dating Stiles.”

Chris noticed that Allison was a little more prickly and irritable the second time around. He placated her by telling her that he’d pursued Stiles because they’d become close. They’d tried to be together after the night of the break-in, but he kept secrets and Stiles dumped him. He said he respected and liked Stiles and that her friend had voiced reservations about dating and keeping things a secret, but that they were adults…blah, blah, blah.

Allison said she needed to sleep on it. As soon as she left the room, Chris called Stiles.

“Peter told me,” he said. “It’s okay. I know you’re disappointed, but it doesn’t make her a bad person.”

“No, she just has doubts about me.”

“Chris, I’m sorry. But you know she loves you.”

“Is that Stiles?” He turned around to see her coming down the hall.

“I wanted to give him a head’s up.”

“What did you think I was going to do, ambush him?”

“I wouldn’t have told you without his permission,” Chris said. “I’m not out of the public eye yet, and if you say something to the wrong person-” he began.

“People know your business and the value of our stock plummets, right?”

“No!” He knew his voice was harsh. “It means a man who works at a shelter and who devotes his life to helping Weres gets hounded by the press all because _I_ pursued _him_ out of my own selfishness and risked his privacy. He did the right thing by sending me packing when I told him I couldn’t be honest with him, you and the public. He doesn’t deserve to get dragged into the limelight and have his life’s work belittled.”

“Then, he should’ve known better than to sleep with my dad,” she snapped.

“Allison.” They both looked down at Chris’s phone. Allison looked startled and horrified. Chris put him on speaker phone.

“I’m sorry, Stiles. I’ll talk to her.”

“It’s okay. She has a right to be angry because we kept it a secret from her. I’m sorry, I didn’t tell you. I started interacting with your dad professionally, and I didn’t see you in almost a year, so it seemed less and less like he was my friend’s dad, and more like someone who worked in the trenches trying to help.”

“Allison’s not going to say anything to anyone about you,” he said. “She might be angry with me, but she won’t take it out on you.”

“Don’t patronize me,” Allison said, quietly. “Stiles, I’m not okay with this, and I don’t know what I’m going to do about it, yet.”

“People who ‘out’ their family members get crucified by the press. Deliberately doing it out of spite would do far worse things to your reputation than it would to a shelter worker like me. You also don’t need to be okay with this or decide what to do.” Stiles’s voice became cold. “I stand by my apology about keeping it a secret, but I’m an adult, and you don’t have to be okay with anything I do. You’re not _doing_ a damned thing about my private life. You can decide not to be my friend, but it’s your loss.”

Stiles hung up and Allison stomped off towards the bedroom.

“Allison.”

“Not now.”

“Yes now. Grow up, turn around and look at me.” He waited until she did. “You’ve been drinking. Don’t to anything until you’ve had a chance to think about what the consequences will be if you attack me and Stiles in public for being adults having a consensual relationship.”

“Don’t patronize me, Dad.”

Chris sighed and texted a goodnight to Stiles. He got another text from Peter a few minutes later. The other Werewolf was asking if he needed to pay Allison another visit. Chris stepped outside where he knew the Alpha would be waiting.

“It would only take a moment.”

“She’d already figured it out, she has a right to be angry. Stiles isn’t just a former classmate; he was one of her best friends.”

“Yes. But you know I’m on your side. She’s met him, she should know he’s irresistible. How did she manage to resist him for so long, anyway?”

“She only had eyes for Scott.”

“How did Scott resist him?”

“He only likes girls.” The two men chuckled.

“I’ll go see him.”

“You want to get in his pants.”

“Every moment. But that’s not the plan tonight. He must be upset, Allison is too. I think you should appeal to a higher power.”

“Lydia?”

“Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Allison is not a bad person, but lying about not planning to tell someone isn't something Chris could risk. I've regretted telling people things in the past and wished I could take the words back. I wanted this chapter to show that there are some things that need to be said.

**Author's Note:**

> I hate leaving things hanging, so I thought about what Peter and Lydia would do to make sure Chris and Allison didn't get blamed or suspected.


End file.
